LEADING accountants Price Waterhouse and the liquidators of Carrian Investments Ltd (CIL) are expected to announce the settlement of a $2 billion civil negligence case in the High Court this morning.

The case, in the wake of Hong Kong's biggest corporate collapse, was expected to run for years with appeals, but negotiations behind closed doors appear to have resolved the dispute.

When the case opened on October 3, Price Waterhouse was alleged to have been 'negligent in the extreme' in allowing CIL to appear as a highly-successful company, when most of its transactions were contrived shams.